A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5069230.stm

I think I've heard it all now :rolleyes:

Dapablo

12-06--2006, 12:10 AM

The whole concept of that place just makes me angry, and that statement is from a dodgy mentality, not sure I like the attitudes exhibited by the American authorities.

Zim

12-06--2006, 12:21 AM

how can somone think that death in any form is a PR strategy.

these guys may have been trying to make a statement (however that is unlikely as they would want to see the fruits of thier labour) or the "official" is panicing and not admitting that somthing evil is acctually going on there

Lychgate

12-06--2006, 04:10 AM

(however that is unlikely as they would want to see the fruits of thier labour)

Not necessarily.

Regardless, it's just the US trying to protect its pride and to look like it is top dog once again.

i think it's such a vile statement...and just shows what egocentric bastards the US military are..but are we really surprised ?
the place should be closed down now.

Dan

12-06--2006, 02:33 PM

It's statements like these that make the majority of people hate the American people unfairly I may add. The administration as well as the major corporations, if I believed in violence, should be executed.

Miserablemik

12-06--2006, 05:37 PM

Rather worringly it seems that certain members and minions of the U.S administration are begining to display more and more of a siege mentality......under fire at home and abroad, more and more Whitehouse/ Pentagon statements (watch Fox news for almost non stop Republican spin) seem to be less arrogant and more unbalanced:insane:, especially as the neocon :reddevil: plans seem to be unravelling or down right failing.....Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that when people or governments feel under attack, they can lash out at an easy target, in this case obviously Iran, which is I suspect, a disaster just sitting and waiting to happen:shitfan:. Suicide as an act of WAR!! FFS.........

Milo

13-06--2006, 01:20 AM

Me, I'm prejudiced, but my prejudice is founded on what I assume to be the prejudices of those who ordered the detentions.

Since Jan 2002 the detention centre has held 759 detainees. 10 of them have been charged. 290 have been released or transferred.

Just how astonishingly bloody useless are investigators who, even using torture, can't in four and a half years bring proceedings against any more than 10 out of 759 detainees?

Unless perhaps 749, or more, of those detainees have done nothing wrong.

matthew

16-06--2006, 08:49 PM

It's odd how certain comments and realities are seized upon and others ignored possibly some [ken Roth] wishful thinking also ?..I dunno !.

"They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

Colleen Graffy, US deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told the BBC World Service the suicides were a "good PR (public relations) move to draw attention".

But another senior US official stepped back from this remark.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson, speaking to BBC radio, said: "I wouldn't characterise it as a good PR move. What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life. Because as Americans, we value life, even the lives of violent terrorists who are captured waging war against our country."

"heroes for those of us who believe in basic American values of justice, fairness and democracy".

Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch in New York, told the BBC the men had probably been driven by despair.
"These people are despairing because they are being held lawlessly," he said.
"There's no end in sight. They're not being brought before any independent judges. They're not being charged and convicted for any crime." That view was supported by British Muslim Moazzam Begg who spent three years in Guantanamo. He said of the camp's inmates: "They're in a worse situation than convicted criminals and it's an act of desperation."

[do they know any of this to be true ?.

one of three who killed themselves was due to be freed but did not know it.

Mark Denbeaux, who represents some of the foreign detainees at the US camp in Cuba, said the man was among 141 prisoners due for release. He said the prisoner was not told because US officials had not decided which country he would be sent to.

The Pentagon named the prisoner who had been recommended for transfer as 30-year-old Saudi Arabian Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi.

He was a member of a banned Saudi militant group, the defence department said.
The other two men who died on Saturday morning were named as Ali Abdullah Ahmed, 28, from Yemen, and Yassar Talal al-Zahrani, 21, another Saudi Arabian.
Ahmed was a mid- to high-level al-Qaeda operative who had participated in a long-term hunger strike from late 2005 to May, and was "non-compliant and hostile" to guards, the Pentagon said. Zahrani, 21, was a "front-line" Taleban fighter who helped procure weapons for use against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, according to the department.

'Serious concerns'

On Sunday Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Ms Graffy told the BBC's Newshour programme the three men did not value their lives, nor the lives of those around them. Detainees had access to lawyers, received mail and had the ability to write to families, so had other means of making protests, she said, and it was hard to see why the men had not protested about their situation.